Fragments
by ncfan
Summary: Elemmírë recounts to her student her experience of the War of Wrath, and of bringing the songs of the Noldolantë back with her to Aman.


I own nothing.

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I marched with the Host of the Valar alongside my older brothers, which is more than can be said for the rest of our family, and frankly shamefully is also more than can be said of our King*. The reluctance of Olwë and the Teleri I can understand. They have already suffered so much on account of the Noldor that no one would have blamed them had they refused to participate in the war effort altogether; nevertheless, they lent us use of ours ships. King Ingwë, on the other hand, would not budge in his refusal to lead his people, no matter the muttering that was directed his way in council. Most of the Vanyarin host considered Ingwë's behavior shameful. As such, the High Prince Ingil Ingwion led the Vanyar to Endóre.

Oh, Thinyë. You are too young to remember those days; you were not born until long afterwards, were you not? And for all that you are a diligent student of the lute, you have little fondness for chronicles of the years. I know what you see in your mind's eye, when you think of your music teacher in leathers and irons, wearing armor, bearing sword and spear and shield, and look, you air your opinions soon enough.

To your first question, yes, many nissi joined the Host, and yes, their competence and surety in themselves was often questioned, by their commanders, by their families, by their spouses, by their children and by their friends. I was not excused from such questionings. It is maddening, Thinyë, to have your resolve on something you have quite thoroughly made up your mind on questioned constantly by the people you love most, let alone on account of your sex.

There was much quoting of what would later come to be known as the _Laws and Customs Among the Eldar _to argue as to why I, along with many of the other nissi of the Host, should not go to war. We are the gentler sex, it was said, naturally more concerned with singing (though apparently not with the making of instruments of the composing of songs, if _Law and Customs _is to be believed—quit smirking!) and gardening and healing than in pursuits of war. These things, it was said to us, were better left to the neri, who are naturally better skilled at the forging of weapons and their use. We would not want to risk the possible deleterious effects bloodshed could have on our abilities to heal and bear children, would we?—don't snort, Thinyë. However, _Laws and Customs _contain a great many statements concerning the sexes that don't bear out in reality, either in the realm of being wildly inaccurate or unequivocally _wrong_—and don't gasp at me as though you've never heard such an opinion stated aloud, Thinyë, even in jest! Even my patience can find itself taxed.

I was here in Taniquetil when it happened. You never beheld the light of the Two Trees, Thinyë, and I suppose that the only mercy of that was that you never felt the fear and grief of watching as their lights were put out and cruelly extinguished. It is said that Laurelin and Telperion gushed sap as though it were blood from a living thing; you are familiar with the composition I am best known for, and know that I sang of this and many other things. You never knew how it was before the days of Isil the Sheen and Anar the Fire-golden; you have only ever known of them. You never knew of the Trees, but know that we loved them so. Know that the days of darkness were terrifying, as our crops died and rotted and we feared that we would never see light again. Know that our grief was great and our anger equally great, and that the nissi of Aman had not forgotten their grief and rage any more than the neri had, by the time Eärendil and Elwing came to our shores, seeking aid for their beleaguered lands. Needless to say, there were very few nissi who found having the _Laws and Customs _quoted at them to be at all intimidating by that point in time.

As I said to you, I went with my older brothers, to Beleriand, and yes, I did fight. You probably have some romantic image of me fighting on a white palfrey with my golden hair streaming behind me. I fought on foot, Thinyë, and kept my hair braided. Tightly braided.

I fought for many years. I slept on the hard earth, ate spare military rations, went for days without food from time to time when rations were scarce. I made friends with the neri and nissi around me, and of those who live still or have been re-embodied, I still stay in contact with. I am glad I went to war, for I never would have met most of them, Noldor nearly all, had I not crossed the sea in the Swan-ships. I fought. I killed. I was wounded and wounded others; I learned to set bones and staunch wounds, though I have never been interested in healing and never pursued that art any further than those two categories.

I brought my lute with me, and I sang, and played, and composed songs. Thinyë, I think I wrote some of my best music over in Beleriand. Even if it wasn't Aman, even if it was war-torn and drowning, Beleriand was beautiful, its people were wonderful and wonderfully young, and it excited all of my creative curiosity. There must have been something in the air. I will certainly tell you that it was exciting writing a song after witnessing Eärendil slay the monstrous Ancalagon the Black. When the time came, I was reluctant to leave; I'd grown very accustomed to the much greater freedom I had in Beleriand than in Aman. And I had learned to live, as I'd never lived before. I very nearly stayed.

But this is not what you were asking me to tell you about, was it? You were wanting to know how I came to bring knowledge of the Noldolantë back to Aman. I'm getting to that.

After the War of Wrath was over, the Valar and Maiar returned to Aman almost immediately; most of them had absolutely no attachment to the swath of land they'd just ruined and drowned. The Vanyarin host planned to follow after them. However, the host of the Noldor tarried in Lindon (the only remnant of any size left of Beleriand); they planned to gather any of the remaining Elves of Endóre who wished to go to Aman, a venture that would last several months at least—and in fact, it lasted four and a half years.

When it came time for the Vanyarin host to return to Aman, I was not yet ready to leave, and wished to stay in Lindon, something that drew the ire of my older brothers. We argued at length about the matter, them trying to force me to come with them by sheer virtue of their being my older brothers. I retorted that I was a grown Elf and that I could live in Lindon on my own for a few years, that I'd made many friends among the Noldor (that I'd always been friendly with the Noldor) and that I could just as easily sail back on one of their ships. There may or may not have been a great deal of swearing involved in our argument; the mind wanders and the memory grows rusty, all though I do quite clearly remember screaming that I hoped that the tips Fanalossë's ears would fall off and that Olordil's business success would dry up and never recover. I do know that all three of us got extremely drunk later and forgave each other then—don't gape, Thinyë; do you know how often we've met for your lessons and I've been hung-over? The three of us all were in fact quite hung-over the next morning when my brothers departed, promising to bear word of me to our parents and youngest sister. I stood at the quays in what now is known as Mithlond, and watched as the ships bearing the host of the Vanyar became nothing more than white specks on a gold-blue horizon.

As I have said, I get along well with the Noldor, and then was no different from now. The High King of the Noldor in Endóre and the High King of the Noldor in Valinor had both set up shop in Lindon, though Arafinwë did make it clear to Ereinion, better known as Gil-Galad, that he would not stay forever and that he wouldn't, in his own words, "meddle in the running of your realm." I became a minstrel in the court of the latter, doing what I do best: playing, composing, singing, and socializing.

Life in Gil-Galad's court was almost mind-numbingly dull after my experiences during the War of Wrath, though those feelings of boredom were nothing compared to what I would feel later once I returned to Valinor. Gil-Galad had many minstrels, and worse yet, little time in those tumultuous early years of his reign in Lindon for the entertainment of minstrels. As such, I had more free time on my hands than I was used to, and spent much of said time wandering about the city and the parts of the palace where I was permitted to go.

One of my favorite places to go was the great library in Lindon, still being built up and bolstered at the time. Its collection was still a bit paltry in comparison to the libraries of Valinor, but it was quiet, a place of peace, and I was able to find the concentration necessary to work on my compositions when I was there. One day in early spring when I went there, I found a large stack of parchment out on a table with their owner nearby, but not keeping his eyes on them. Something about the parchment—I do not know what, even now—caught my eye, and I looked upon it, only to recognize the handwriting as belonging to another great minstrel of the Quendi, one I had once known. Makalaurë, in fact.

To answer your question, Thinyë, I first met Makalaurë when he was a young child. It was at a music festival in Alqualondë; my partner had failed to show up, I was in need of a harpist to perform with, and young Makalaurë happened to be there and be in possession of a harp at the time. I was already grown by then, in all honesty probably closer in age to his father than I was to him. We did like each other, though. We exchanged letters often, and met face-to-face a few more times after that. I was at his wedding, and we once performed in front of King Olwë together.

I still remember the way he looked when he and his surviving brother tried to steal the Silmarils from our camp at the end of the War of Wrath.

Oh, Thinyë. I see the look on your face. Know that I have no more love for the Silmarils and what was wrought in their name than you do. And do not ask me to tell you if Fëanáro and his sons should be condemned, pitied, or treated with some other emotion entirely. Scholars and philosophers will be debating that question until the end of time. Maybe even after that. All I can tell you is what I believe. Despite what many others might tell you, Fëanáro and his sons were not evil people. They did evil things, but they themselves were not evil. Obsession is a terrible thing, Thinyë. It can twist even the best of intentions into malice.

There was the light of desperation in Makalaurë and Maitimo's eyes as they tried to steal the Silmarils. Makalaurë did not see me, I think, or if he did, he did not recognize me. He looked horrible. His clothes were shabby and threadbare and he did not look as though he had eaten well in decades, possibly centuries. I saw his face as he was given a Silmaril to hold, Thinyë. He did not love them. He did not love them any more than you or I. I think he hated them. He hated them and what he'd done in the attempt to get them, and above all I think he hated the sort of person he'd become in their pursuit, but he was obsessed, and could not stray from the road now.

You know what happened after that. The Silmarils turn on everyone who possesses or even wishes to possess them, and this time was no exception. They would not suffer the touch of the surviving sons of Fëanáro, and horribly burned their hands instead. Maitimo took his own life by diving into a fiery chasm in the earth. There has, I know, been confusion on the ultimate fate of Makalaurë, but he did not take his life as his brother did, not then at least. He cast his Silmaril into the sea, and fled from us. We never found him. He may have killed himself after that, or he may yet be alive. I do not know.

Anyway, the papers I found in the library that day belonged to Makalaurë. I had had enough letters from him in Valinor to recognize his handwriting, even now. What interested me about them even more than the identity of their writer, however, was their apparent content. They were songs. Bits and pieces of songs.

The current owner of that stack of parchment finally noticed me looking through them, and hurried back over to the table where he'd left them, looking worried and displeased. He was a very young Sindarin Elf, barely fully-grown, possibly with some Noldorin ancestry in him; he certainly had some of the blood of the Atani. The young elf was named Elrond. He was rather possessive of Makalaurë's (or Maglor's, as he called him; Sindarin is _such_ an unwieldy language) work, and was reluctant to even let me look at it. I assumed at the time that the boy had once been a soldier in Makalaurë's service, and still felt loyalty to his former lord even if said lord was quite thoroughly in disgrace.

With some wheedling, however, I was able to persuade Elrond to let me look at Makalaurë's papers. My first impression of Elrond was that he was in mourning, judging from his unsociable, rather morose behavior, and for whom I would soon learn. Some small-talk later, and I found that Elrond was not a former servant or soldier of Makalaurë's. I learned that Elrond and his twin, who was elsewhere rallying the Atani, and whom I never met, were in fact Makalaurë's foster-sons. Suddenly, his behavior started to make a bit more sense, and suddenly I was feeling even more uncomfortable than before. But the more I looked over what Makalaurë had left behind, the more I knew that it could not be left to languish in a library in Endóre.

Elrond would not allow me to take the parchments back with me to Aman. Since they were essentially his inheritance, I did not see that it was any right of mine to insist. However, he would let me make copies of them to take back to Aman.

I set to undertake the task with the sort of enthusiasm I rarely see out of anyone, except perhaps when you mastered your first composition and was eager to learn another. Soon enough, I think, though I was still determined to bring what I saw back with me, my enthusiasm was gone.

Yes, Thinyë, that was the Noldolantë. And it was a jumbled mess.

There are more than seventy-five fragments making up the Noldolantë, and Makalaurë only ever finished eleven of them. I know that you have learned more than eleven pieces in your studies of that work, but the other pieces that you have studied were not completed by Makalaurë. You've played melodies that have no lyrics, and that's how I found them. You've played songs that whether you've noticed or not, were never actually completed. You've played songs that may seem complete to you, but while their lyrics were completed, the melody is something added on later by other musicians—and if I am to disappear and you ever do something like that to my work, Thinyë, _yes, _there _will_ be a reckoning.

I was surprised to see that in what melodies he did finish, or at least in the melodies he somewhat committed to parchment, that many of them called for more than one instrument than a harp. I had never been able to convince Makalaurë that there was virtue to more instruments than the harp. It had taken his wife, another harpist, though not so much of a purist as was he, to do that, to at last convince him to play the flute and lyre, but he was never fond of any instrument so much as he was of the harp, so it was surprising to see pieces written for flute and lyre, and even some for the lute. What? Oh yes, yes, I'm getting to that, Thinyë; don't rush me.

The tone of the work shot up and down wildly from piece to piece. One unfinished piece could be a joyous invocation of the stars; the next in number could be a doleful dirge for the dead. Soaring highs, dreadful lows. There was very little in the way of rhyme or reason to the organization according to tone; I think Makalaurë may have been writing based on what mood he was in on any given day. Or perhaps it was a sign of his possible increasing mental instability. I'm not sure.

And the lyrics themselves…

I think I once heard you tell me that you don't understand why Makalaurë was considered so great a bard. From simply looking at his written songs, I suppose I can understand why you might come to that conclusion; the things he committed to parchment were really nothing special. Oh, but Thinyë, you never heard him sing. It is true that the lyrics of his songs retain nothing of his power. You can perhaps sense a little bit of it when you look at lyrics and melody and play them for yourself. But Makalaurë's power rested not with his words, nor with his melodies. His power rested with his voice.

From childhood, Makalaurë had a preternatural gift for song. He had a clear, lovely voice, with range wider than yours or mine, able to dip down to low notes that nissi could not reach and summit high notes that neri could not muster. When he sang, the stars stopped to listen. The very air seemed to stand still. Perhaps we were hearing the song of his soul in his words, or perhaps he wrought some sort of magic whenever he lifted his voice to sing without even realizing it. I do not know. But I do not think, Thinyë, that you will ever understand, not without hearing him sing for yourself. It's not something I can properly put into words.

Many of the fragments had heavy marks striking through them; still more appeared to be complete but were marked for revision. This was not unusual. Makalaurë was supremely confident in the power of his voice, but he was his own harshest critic when it came to the composition of his songs, and I am not sure if he was ever truly happy with anything he wrote. Elrond and I derived the name 'Noldolantë' from a note in the margins of one of his works, itself heavily crossed out. The Fall of the Noldor. I am not sure if that was what Makalaurë would have wanted his work to be called, in the end. But then, the more I think about it, the less sure I am that Makalaurë ever intended for anyone to see it at all.

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Endnotes:

*It is said in the published _Silmarillion_ that Ingwë never again set foot on Middle-Earth after leading the host of the Vanyar to Valinor ('Of the Coming of the Elves'). That would mean that he took no part in the War of Wrath, which probably inspired mixed feelings among his people, as many of the Vanyar _did _participate in that venture.

Arafinwë—Finarfin  
Makalaurë—Maglor  
Fëanáro—Fëanor  
Maitimo—Maedhros

Endóre—Middle-Earth (Quenya)  
Nissi—women (singular: nís)  
Neri—men (plural: nér)  
Isil the Sheen—a Vanyar name for the Moon  
Anar the Fire-golden—A Vanyar name for the Sun  
Mithlond—The Grey Havens (Sindarin)  
Quendi—Elves (singular: Quendë) (Quenya)  
Atani—Men (singular: Atan); the name given to Men in the lore of Valinor


End file.
